


the slow dance of infinite stars

by insanetwin



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, I'll be your mirror, aka these gay moms, also hey there's sex in here, set in 6.08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 17:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8632162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insanetwin/pseuds/insanetwin
Summary: set during I'll be Your mirroremma and regina have a little heart-to-heart between fighting for their lives and trying to find a way out again.





	

"there is never a time or place for true love. it happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment." - sarah dessen, _the truth about forever_

* * *

 

They're stuck putting pieces of the mirror back together. But after hours of laborious puzzle work, the lingering light has dimmed and both are too tired to keep picking glass, fumbling with the sharp angles, trying to make them fit.

So they set up camp instead.

“Unbelievable,” Regina grumbles again, dropping her small bundle of sticks onto the ground. Emma only sighs and gathers them up again. The ground is wet and hard beneath her knees, but on a flat gray stone she has managed to light some sort of kindling -- not quite enough for a fire -- but enough to pull a ragged blue-gray smoke up into the air.

She doesn’t look away from the curling red pine leaves, cautious of its wavering life, but she can sense Regina’s agitation as she paces in and out of her sight.

After a minute, Emma sighs. “Regina, please.”

“ _What_?”

“We need to stay calm.”

“I am calm,” Regina snaps back, straight-spined and angry. She glares out at the treeline, and tucks her fingers into the small pockets of her waist coat. “In fact, I _love_ being stuck in a nightmare realm while every _cruel intent_ of mine runs around with the people I love.”

After a beat of hesitation, Emma’s fingers redden at the tips, stopped too close and for too long on the kindling. Pressing her lips together in a short grimace, Emma flicks the pain away, feeling more deeply the need for words. It seems that no matter how intimately she comes to know Regina, she still gets lost on the script. She can’t always imagine what to say.

Lately (terribly), she has been wondering if that’s why Regina spends most of her time with Snow now. Her Mom would know what to say. She can blunt just about anything with optimism.

Wincing, Emma tiredly pushes that thought away. “We’re going to figure this out, Regina,” she says, and tries to firm up the quiet waver in her voice. “And even if we don’t, she can’t keep us in here forever.”

Regina hums shortly, as if she’d just been told a joke with no true humor to it. “You have some interesting illusions about the Evil Queen,” she says, and continues staring out at the dark tree line above them. The sky loses its depth, turning into a soft pink-gray.

A windy silence follows. Above them both, the trees knock branches, occasionally dropping big red leaves onto the ground. Mirrors from every angle reflect back a wispy nothingness. Emma counts four seconds into the silence until she sighs, done with words, and seeks the bottom of her pocket with her fingers, finding her flask.

“Want some whiskey?” she asks.

After a pause, Regina glances back at her. Her eyebrows arch up curiously. “And just where did you get that?”

Twisting off the cap, she shrugs. “It’s Hooks.”

Immediately, Regina’s face hardens. “How charming,” She curls her lip and turns away, folding her arms over her chest. The wind blunts some of the silence, but the anger still rumbles on, as loud and unclear as an underground railway.

Sighing thinly, Emma stares at the hard line of Regina’s back, all the inexplicable points of bone, anger, and hurt that holds her stiff. She could guess the reason why, but she gets her hunches right only occasionally, and to be wrong would invite only another ambush of anger between them.

Resolved to avoid a fight tonight, Emma takes a large swig of whisky. “Wanna sit down with me?” she asks. The pleasant buzz of whiskey lift her voice playfully. “It’s warmer here.”

Regina merely shrugs. She stands separate and remote, watching through the sparsely spaced trees as the sun disappears from sight, bleeding into a pale yellow-orange in the sky.

“Come on,” she tries again, “Sit with me by the fire.”

Maybe her voice is a little too thin, a little too desperate, because after a short pause, Regina slowly sighs and makes her way to Emma’s side.

“You liar,” she grumbles, stretching out her legs beside Emma. “It’s not warm at all.”

“Sorry.” she chuckles, and tosses a larger piece of wood on top of the fire. Flames flare immediately, floating red sparks up into the air. “Better?”

“Better.”

A warm silence passes. The red glow of the fire brightens in the dark, touching the tops of Regina’s cheeks and exposing the soft, tired creases around her eyes when she brushes back a strand of her dark hair. Watching her, Emma feels a sharp tug inside her chest, an awkward inner pull that closes her ribs tighter around her heart.

Swallowing, she takes another swig of whiskey and forces herself to look away again. She stares instead into the warm flickering fire, watching wood cackle and crumble into a simmering red silence. She presses back more firmly against a cement block.

It’s just been a long day, she quietly assures herself. Just one hell of a day.

There is a long-drawn out sigh beside her before a furtive pull of fingers slides the flask out from Emma’s grip. Emma turns to see Regina take a fairly large swig of whiskey herself.

“Nice.” she smiles

Rolling her eyes, Regina smiles and wipes the corners of her mouth with a thumb and forefinger. “That is truly the worst whiskey I’ve ever had,” she says, and passes the flask back. “But thank you.”

“It’s not _that_ bad.”

“It’s pretty bad.”

“Well, it might not be as nice as your thousand dollar stash, but it gets the job done.” She takes another sip, feeling somewhere beneath her warm buzz the edge of her early years, sneaking bottles and packaged sandwiches into the side of her jacket, always holding back on the larger, more expensive wants, the things that might have filled her up more. The things that might have tasted better.

A windy silence fills the air. Above them, a blank riddle of stars shines through patches of dark clouds, reflecting back on empty mirrors.

Regina must have followed her into introspection, because after a brief pause she reaches over to smooth a hand over Emma’s bony knee, pinching the skin tenderly with her thumb. She doesn’t say anything more, just gently squeezes her knee, more generous nowadays with her love.

(It is still somewhat of a shock to know that it had been the Evil Queen who had been the hesitant one, who grew shy and drew back, who bit the tongue of her affection.)

Emma takes another large gulp. A pleasant warmth tumbles inside her, helping diminish the large strangeness around them. With Regina beside her, it’s just a little less terrifying. The trees around them could almost just be from the forest outside of Regina’s house. Ignore the mirrors, and the strange, dark sky; she is just camping outside for the night, safe with Regina, and in the morning they’ll pack everything up and go back home.

To help along the feeling, Emma playfully nudges Regina’s shoulder. “Wanna play a drinking game?” she asks, and laughs at the frank, sharp-eyed look of disapproval Regina gives her. “Oh come on, it’d be fun. And anyway, it might help pass the time.”

“I don’t know, Emma.”

“Come on, just a simple one. I’ll explain the rules.”

Regina humphs and glares into the fire, but when Emma gently presses their shoulders together again, she sighs. “Oh, very well. What are the rules?”

“Right. So it’s basically truth or dare, but instead of dare, you gotta drink if you don’t want to answer a question. Simple enough?”

“I suppose.”

To get them going, Emma passes the flask to Regina and bumps her knee. “Okay, first question,” she says with a smile. “What’s your favorite movie?”

Regina answers, “Star Wars,” reflexively and then, with a small press of her lips, seems to regrets it.

But too late, because Emma is already rolling her head back with a laugh. “Oh, I _knew_ it.” She smiles at the black sky, the warm buzz of her blood rising to her cheeks when Regina’s admonishing fingers pinch her knee. _Her hand is still on my knee,_ she thinks _,_ the thought spinning wordlessly in Emma’s head. “You’re such a nerd.” she manages a little breathlessly.

“I didn’t know mocking would be a part of this game.” Regina says, but there is no true edge to her voice. Her thumb rubs slowly back and forth on Emma’s knee, smoothing along the bone.

“I’m not mocking you, I love it,” As she says it, an almost painful happiness coils inside her chest, feeling as if a large metal spring is slowly being wound up inside. “God, I’m so glad Henry had you. That boy was born to be a nerd, but who knows what would have happened if he’d been with me.”

“Oh right, because you’re so _cool_?”

“No,” she smiles softly, and shakes her head, staring down at her black boots. “But you know. I am a highschool drop out. I would have never been able to follow him into the kind of stuff he likes now. I barely even have the patience for _movies_ , much less comics or books.”

An unexpected silence follows after her. Sitting there with the wind howling above them, a dull panic begins to thud in her throat. After a beat, she glances over uneasily, dreading what stupid, clumsy offense she’s made, but Regina doesn’t appear to be angry. She is watching her seriously, her eyes steady and dark.

“What?” Emma asks hesitantly.

For a moment, Regina doesn’t say anything. And then, slowly, with a tentative hand, she smoothes a blonde curl away from Emma’s face, tucking it close behind her ear.

“You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit,” Softly, Regina continues to tuck loose strands of blonde hair back behind an ear, stopping only long enough to thumb the small quiver of lines that wrinkle around Emma’s mouth. “Oh Emma. You are so much smarter than you even know.”

Something wild rackets in her blood, buzzing in her ears. Staring at Regina, at the dark steady look in her eyes and that purple lipstick, Emma almost feels it happen -- the possibility of the next moment, the way her elbow would bend and lean her into the space between them, into finally knowing for herself whether Regina would lean back, whether she’d want to feel out another sort of happy ending for the both of them.

Instead, she feebly grabs the flask from Regina’s hand. “It’s, uh, your turn,” she says in a soft croak.

Blinking slowly, Regina nods and turns back to the fire. Had she been thinking _\--_ had she been _hoping_? -- no, best not to dwell on it.

In the quiet, Emma looks up at the sky. Stars shine their stark, cold light out at oblique angles, bisected by mirrors, looking vaguely like search lights out against the darkness of the sky. A dull horror starts to thud up her ribcage, threatening to turn into a prickling panic at the reminder of just how helpless they are here, but the feeling is temporarily checked by motion, turning instead to the sound of Regina’s voice.

“Do you like your new house?” Regina asks.

The question seems easy enough at first, and so she runs an absentminded answer off her tongue. “Yeah, sure. It’s fine,” But as she sits in the quiet, staring out at the thin beams of light in the sky, she hears herself say, almost without her knowledge, “Well. It’s kind of lonely.”

She half expects her admission to be accepted and nodded off with little notice, to silently join the growing list of normal disappointments that feature her life now. But when she turns her head, Regina is regarding her seriously, her eyes sharp and keen.

“You...you feel lonely?” she asks quietly. Her eyes harbor a deep knowledge, slightly pained, as if she’s guessed it already.

Grimacing, Emma passes back the flask. “You -- uh, you only get one question,” she says, and, headful of the approaching conversation, pushes ahead. “So did you really mean what you said? About you being afraid to raise Henry alone?”

Emma isn’t sure what she’s expecting. Maybe for the topic to derail the conversation so completely that they forget the game altogether. Or maybe for Regina, in a more calm, safe setting, to avoid affirming her statement at all, and make everything go quiet again.

But instead, Regina’s response comes quick and surefire, vaguely offended to be asked at all. “Of _course_ I meant it, Emma. You are very important to me. As another mother to Henry and as my friend,” And then, just like that, she is pushing the flask back. “Now, back to you.”

As her chest seizes up with the tumultuous whirl of everything Regina said, Emma has to blink warmth back from her eyes.

“God,” she musters with a warm wet laugh, rubbing her eyes. “Fine, I guess. Go ahead.”

“Why are you lonely over there?”

She sighs, “Oh, I don’t know,” The answer could almost be true, and with a good-natured shrug, she nearly brushes it off as such, but with a sidelong glance at the fraught look in Regina’s eyes, she crumbles. “Okay. Well. It’s just that...everything feels new there, you know? We’ve got this new sofa, that’s just something I ordered online, and it’s fine, I like it enough, but it still feels like something I’d see in someone else’s house. It’s nice, but nothing feels like its me, in there. Everything in that house feels that way.”

“Everything?” Regina asks quietly.

“Well,” Swallowing thickly, a raspy laugh cracks cold and clean in the air. “No, not everything. Obviously. I only meant -- it’s just a bunch of things, you know? It’s not...I didn’t mean --”

“Right,” Regina fills in faintly. “Of course.”

The quiet returns. Beyond the campfire, as the crackling wood and pine needles gradually grows quieter, an even larger silence waits. It stretches out wide and restless above them in the sky. Emma stares at the sap stained soles of her shoes.

“Do you love him?” Regina asks quietly. From the pitted sound of her voice, Emma knows she probably doesn’t want to know the answer. But she asks anyway.

And well. Naturally, Emma knows the answer to that. She should. She’s said it to Hook a half-dozen times, already. She’s said it to her parents, to her son. She’s said it to everyone.... Everyone. Except Regina.

But now, the words gather like something painful in her throat, like thin slivers of bone. She swallows, tries to speak, and then swallows again. Practically rib-to-rib, she can feel Regina breathing beside her own, steady and firm and gently controlled, muted as she waits in apprehension.

And though Emma is fairly sure neither one of them are paying attention to the game anymore, or aware of any of its rules or turns, she lifts the flask up again, unscrews the cap and takes a large, burning gulp.

Even in the dark, Emma can see the ripple of surprise on Regina’s face.

“What does that mean?” Regina asks sharply.

“It means,” she coughs and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, squinting at the fire. “That its my turn again,” Passing the flask again, she waits for Regina’s fingers to fumble for a grip before blundering forward. “Why haven’t you come to see my place yet?”

“What?”

“It’s’ been weeks since I got it,” she can feel her voice rise in accusation, and with a swallow, she manages to push it down. “It just feels like...lately, we don’t make time for each other. I mean, I asked you over a few weeks ago, and then again just two nights ago, and you just...you never came. All I wanted was for you to see my house -- I wanted you to see my place, and look at my stupid sofa and tell me it all looks great.”

The wind picks up, whistling into nowhere. Regina stares at her, her face bright and impossibly sad in the dimming light.

“I can’t do that.” she says quietly.

Emma blinks at her. A breathless trapped feeling struggles inside of her, struggling to make sense.

“Why?”

A look of dreadful sorrow pinches the side of Regina’s mouth, and soon after, a trembling hand gently slides up Emma’s cheek. “I will always be your friend,” she says softly, forcibly stepping over the question now left unanswered. “I will always be here for you, Emma.”

“But...” she breathes, “Then why can’t you come see me? I have a place now, I could make dinner for you and Henry. I could--” She nearly goes on, rolling off the full list of what she still wants out of her life, but upon hearing the pleading sound of her own voice, her breath halts at once.

With a quiet tenacity, Regina exhales raggedly and gently continues stroking her thumb over the side of Emma’s cheek. “I can’t,” she whispers, her voice shaking as she gently pushes back blonde stray curls. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry. I wish -- I wish I could, for you, I wish I could. But I can’t.”

“Why?” Emma asks quietly. Her life is closing in on itself, diminishing inside of her, _It’s just going to be me in that house,_ she thinks _. Just me and him_. “What is it? Is it Hook? Is it the house?”

With a brittle wince, Regina starts to disengage, pulling away, but Emma clambers after her, closing a hand over her retreating fingers.

“Please,” she whispers. “Just tell me. I can fix it. Please.”

“Emma, no. There’s nothing for you to fix,” Regina sighs, “It’s just -” For a moment, her fingers close inside Emma’s palm, feeling like a hard fist of cold bone, and then slowly, wearily, she lets go, and lets everything else go with it. “I’m just not ready yet.”

“Not ready...?”

“I can’t go into that house,” she sighs, and slowly, tentatively returns the palm of her hand to Emma’s cheek. “Not yet. Not while, I know...I know that I’m still waiting for you. And...if I see you in that house with him, then -- then that would be the end of it, of waiting, and I would have to accept that whatever I thought might happen between us is not going to happen, and...that’s. That’s fine. But God, I’m not ready for it.”

Scarcely breathing, Emma can only stare; her stunned, wild heart beats in some remote, faraway place inside her, thrumming against her fingertips, against Regina’s slender wrist.

Slowly, Regina smiles tremulously, close to tears. “I know,” she whispers, and gently smoothes her thumb along Emma’s eyebrow. “This isn’t what you wanted to hear. I’m sorry. I’m -- I’m really trying to let you go, I really am.”

To that, Emma can think of nothing else to do but lean in and kiss her.  

Her mouth comes immediately against a surprised _omph_ sound, and a frozen static kiss that is not really a kiss, just a frightened press of lips so rigid that, immediately after touching it, Emma rocks back, shakily.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, her heart beating so hard she can hardly hear anything else. There is just so much to say. Her lungs expand unsteadily with all of it -- to say, _it is_ everything, _everything_ in that house: the sofas, the long oak tables, Hook, herself, _everything_ , it all feels strange, and cold, and lonely and lately, it’s all she can do not to slip away from it entirely, to exist, barely-visible, as someone else.

She wants to say, _I feel most like myself when I’m with you_ . She wants to say, _please, please do not let me go._

But all she can do is stare at Regina, completely mum, close enough to smell her perfume and the faint cedar taste of the whiskey on her breath. Regina stares back, her eyes large, dark, and unreadable.

And then, slowly, Regina leans back in.

The kiss is slower this time, held tentatively between their lips. Regina is soft and warm against her mouth, almost chaste, but as the kiss goes on, Emma pushes back, opening her mouth just enough for them to _fit_ , for Regina’s lipstick to smudge, and for everything to fall into place.

With a tumbling, pitched moan, the kissing gets more heated. And God, it’s good, it’s _them_ , fitting perfectly together after so long.

A hot, ragged breath flares against her lips as Regina pulls back just enough to nip and kiss the side of her mouth, again, and again, until her skin feels like it’s _humming_ , and she can hardly breathe, her head spinning wordlessly.

“Regina,” she groans, uncaring of how desperate she sounds, breathing it right into Regina’s mouth. “ _Regina_.”

A moan catches between their moving mouths, turning raw and ragged as Regina  slides a hand up Emma’s arm, past her shoulder and over the tired line of her jaw, gently gripping the back of her neck. Her fingers dig into the bony knobs beneath the skin, urging Emma closer, and closer, until, clumsily, she tumbles over, pushing Regina down with her on the floor.

Completely levelled, Regina doesn’t even break their kiss. Her fingers tighten, gripping Emma’s hair until Emma is compelled to rest on her knees and elbows, on top of Regina.

“Regina,” she gasps, between kisses, ‘Do you...Do you want this...?”

“Yes,” Regina groans, biting her lip. “Yes, I want this.”

Struggling to catch her breath, Emma leans back just enough to look at Regina again. Just to see her. Because she is -- she’s so beautiful like this, with her dark hair mussed and her lipstick smudged and her eyes so much darker than anything Emma has ever seen, darker than the black sky above them or the house she lives in at night. It pinches the breath in her lungs and makes her lean desperately back for more.

Because -- because this is sex, but it’s so much more, it’s sex with _Regina_ , with her best friend, with her son’s mom, and it’s just ... it’s never felt this _safe_ before.

For a while, they just kiss. Emma sucks on the fading, leftover taste of whiskey on Regina’s bottom lip, taking with it the last of her lipstick. After a while, Emma starts to feel the strain of her knees against the cold ground, and knowing the way a long day of work can turn Regina’s body stiff, Emma turns her head, disengaging her mouth.

Regina makes a low sound of protest in her throat, and tries to follow after her retreating mouth.

“Wait,” Emma breathes and turns her cheek, laughing when Regina just diverts her attention to the corner of her jaw, kissing down her neck. “Regina-- _God_ , I’m trying to do something here.”

“Then do it,” she says and nips at the quickening pulse in Emma’s throat.

So she goes for it. With shaky fingers, Emma starts on the dark buttons of Regina’s waist coat, carefully undoing each one. Immediately, the hand in her hair tightens, and then goes slack, sliding gently down the plane of her shoulder to the bony notch of her elbow. Seemingly unable to provide any snarky feedback, Regina simply breathes heavily against Emma’s skin as she waits for her coat to be unbuttoned completely and smoothed off both her shoulders.

“There,” Emma whispers, and gently lays the coat down out on the hard ground below them, tugging the black fabric close behind Regina. “That should be easier on your elbows. Lay down on that.”

Blinking slowly, Regina turns to stare down at her coat. It is wrinkled and a little dusted by the pine needles on the floor, but her expression never turns indignant; all she does is stare, until, quite suddenly, and seemingly against her conscious will, she snorts and covers her eyes with the palm of her hand.

Blinking, Emma draws back a bit uncertainly. “What?” she frowns, feeling the press of her insecurities. “Was that dumb?”

“No, no,” Regina gently assures, but in the close, intimate space between them, her voice sounds rough and a little teary, sticking unexpectedly in her throat. With a mellow dip of her head, uncharacteristically demure, Regina turns to press a warm, friendly kiss against the side of Emma’s mouth. “It’s just such an Emma Swan thing to do.” she whispers.

“Oh.” she breathes.

And then, gently, gripping the back of Emma’s elbows, Regina helps guide her back down on top of her, settling them both on the softer ground. There is a moment of shifting, fumbling to situate themselves, and for a brief, confusing moment, Emma almost pulls back, feeling a bony resistance against her stomach, but before she can, the push of Regina’s knees turns outward and parts until there is room between her legs.

Settling against Regina’s body, a hot warm sensation floods her belly at the gentle upward push of the hips against her own. Open-mouthed, a raspy groan falls out of Emma, overtaken, and slightly dumb by the soft, electric feeling of their bodies rocking together, moving them back and forth.

Slowly, they find a rhythm.

As they move together, Regina searches for some way to hold Emma. Her fingers smooth over the hard planes of Emma’s shoulder blades, but when their motion picks up, and holding proves to be too difficult, she seeks out an easier grip, curling her fingers in the long blonde hair at the base of Emma’s neck.

There is still so much between them.

As they move, the friction builds, tumbling into a warm, red nowhere against the barriers of their clothes. Breathing hard against the silky shear of Regina’s blouse, Emma works to remove her own shirt, the fabric feeling suddenly heavy on her skin.  

After a brief clumsy, uncoordinated moment, Regina seems to catch on too, releasing the grip she has on Emma’s hair in order to help pull the shirt up over her head. As the cool air hits Emma’s bare skin, another wave of trembling excitement rises up, warming her up from the inside. Because god, this is really _happening_.

A hushed, breathlessness extends between them. Above them, the stars shine their cold light, shifting in the night sky. The fire crackles, still warm beside them. Regina only stares at Emma, her eyes dark and beautiful, skin glowing warmly in the red light.

And then Regina is leaning up again, pressing a warm, dry kiss against Emma’s collarbone, moving her mouth in a slow, unhurried path to the corner of skin  just below her ear. A breathless moan hitches in Emma’s throat, a warm ticklish feeling rising up in her belly.

Things move slow, but with purpose. As they kiss, Regina’s hands smooth up and down Emma’s thighs, squeezing the muscle just to make her feel good; quickly getting lost in the feeling, Emma has to rest her forehead into the warm arch of her shoulder. She sighs, closing her eyes to the feeling of teeth scraping down her neck, to warm, sucking kisses, to those quick, slender fingers sliding down the zipper of her jeans.

She rises up only when Regina starts pulling on her jeans, helping to wiggle and push the tight denim down her thighs and past her knees. When she slides back, Regina’s breathing has turned hot and unsteady against her neck.

Squeezing her knees tenderly, Regina smoothes a hand up her thigh again, and then goes somewhere new. With the tips of her fingers, she presses beneath the thin fabric of underwear, into the wet, hot flesh there. The touch of her fingers there, sliding slowly back and forth, sends an electric heat through Emma’s skin, quivering dangerously in her thighs, threatening to fold her already.

Struggling through a sigh, Emma grips Regina’s shoulders to hold herself steady, pushing gently against teasing fingers, sliding only on the outskirts of where she needs her.

“Regina,” she gasps, working to push her voice through it’s breathy pleading. “Just -- can you just _get_ in already.”

A breathy laugh vibrates soft against her throat. “Do you not have any patience, at all?” Regina breathes, speaking directly against skin. Her fingers press up, sliding in tight circles around her clit.

As her thighs quiver, Emma grips Regina’s shoulders harder with a tingling urgency, pushing herself up so that those fingers are right there at her entrance.

A hot breath erupts shakily against Emma’s chest, followed quickly with a warm mouth, biting in admonishment. “You just couldn’t wait,” Regina pants, but she is smiling, her cheeks flushed with a deep, blushing red as she follows Emma’s insistence, angling her fingers up.

Breathless, she pushes inside Emma, going deep.

“Oh,” Emma groans raggedly.

Regina strokes slowly, stretching deep inside until her knuckles are pressing hard against her pubic bone. Shallow breaths tumble out of her as Emma follows the movement, up and down, helplessly gripping Regina’s shoulders.

It doesn’t take very long after that. The pleasure is building, growing larger and larger inside Emma until it feels like she is opened up from inside, gasping breathlessly.

Her hands are holding a white-knuckled grip around Regina’s shoulders, helping with their movement, until, somewhat unexpectedly Regina leans up to kiss her. It’s this, this one sudden kiss, that sends Emma tumbling over, a white-hot blur of pleasure spins her mind into a warm blankness.

Emma doesn't have the energy to be embarrassed about what comes after, her gasping, breathless sounds, shuddering so violently, she has to lean her weight on Regina again, just to feel calm again.

As she comes down, her skin slowly quieting, Regina slides a hand up and down Emma’s back, easing her down from her high, smoothing down the quivering, hard muscles.

A warm silence settles.

After a little while, Emma gently clears her throat, feeling the air cool the sweat on her skin. Regina is still breathing a little unevenly, pressing warm kisses against Emma’s cheek and ear. Closing her eyes, Emma tucks her head down, laying her cheek against Regina’s shoulder. “

“So,” she says tentatively. “What -- um, what would you like to happen?”

Slowly, Regina stiffens. “What?” her voice cracks, a little rough.

“Well.” A hot flush warms Emma’s cheeks. “I’m not... super experienced with this. But...” Pressing a soft kiss along Regina’s neck, she moves her mouth to the soft place beneath her jaw and then to the warm corner of her mouth. “I’ll do anything. Anything you want.”

Swallowing heavily, Regina grips her hair tighter. “Okay,” she breathes.

* * *

 

In the morning, Emma wakes slowly to the sound of Regina gathering up her clothes. She is still naked, but there is no lingering softness from the night before in her body. She has returned to her high-shouldered, straight-spined walk, moving in a quick, businesslike way as she picks her bra up from where it had been tossed away hours before.

Swallowing quietly, Emma doesn’t move. Her stomach jolts nervously when Regina turns her way, clipping her bra from behind and sliding the straps up onto her arms -- a casual daily motion that shouldn’t make Emma’s stomach feel like it’s a stone sinking slowly to the bottom of the ocean, but Regina has this look in her eyes and her lips are thin and she keeps brushing her fingers briskly through her dark hair as if she’s trying to run it clear of any and all evidence of last night.

The sky is a cold pale blue above them. Emma might have gone on pretending to be asleep forever had there not been a chill in the air, but since there is, she lasts only a few more minutes before the cold settles damp and heavy against her body, making her teeth chatter.

Regina pauses, a  momentary halt of action, before she is glancing back at Emma over her shoulder. Her expression is a blank, showy look of indifference.

“Good, you’re awake,” she says, and slides her dark hair behind her ear with an impatient flick of her fingers Emma tries not to think about the way those fingers had touched her the night before, slow and tender and loving. “Will you get dressed? We have to get moving.”

Emma swallows, and slowly sits up. “Um,” she has to clear her voice from the soft soreness in her throat. Her body still thrums from all the places she had been touched.“Sure. Are you okay?”

“Of course I am,” she snips. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. You just seem a little tense, that’s all.”

“Well, we are stuck in a mirror, Emma,” Regina briskly snaps up her blouse. Something has hardened in her overnight, pulled carefully back beneath a hard underlayer of bone. Emma wants to ask her to slow down, to lay back down with her for a little while, but doesn’t have the courage in her to be rejected.

Instead, she sits there watching. Mirrors glint with the morning light, turning sharp with a silvery blankness. Quietly, Regina hums out a thin sound of discontent when she can’t button her blouse up all the way, muttering _dammit_ softly beneath her breath.

When Regina is mostly dressed, she stops by Emma’s side with a sigh. “Are you not getting dressed today, Emma?” she asks. It might have sounded playful at any other time, but now, it flags, her voice sounding instead like a thin, metal rod, stripped of any good humor.

When Emma just shrugs, Regina sighs again and stops fidgeting with her blouse. “Well, we need to put the mirror back together,” Raking her fingers quickly through her hair, she directs a withering glare to some indefinite spot above the treeline, her face as hard and cold as the sky. “When you’re ready to start acting like an adult, come find me. We need to get a move on.”

And then Regina is walking away, turning around the corner to and disappearing into the sparse line of trees.

By the time Emma has dressed and stomped dead whatever left-over kindling that remained of their campfire, it has already been several minutes. The sky has brightened into day, pulling thin shadows from the tall black trees above her, their bare, jagged rhythms playing across the ground.

As she walks, Emma pushes back the old feeling in her chest. But it has an annoying insistence, knocking dully against her ribs again and again, the way people might impatiently slap at small mechanical failures, waiting for elevator doors to open and walk signs to flip on and for the whole world to function perfectly for one damn second.

When she finds Regina, however, the feeling in her chest tumbles into something else. There, beside the mirror, Regina is standing stiffly with her arms crossed around her chest and her neck bowed to rest her head against the smooth, broken glass.

For a moment, nothing moves.

And then, slowly, gathering her bearings, Emma walks closer. Her heart is beating hard in her throat, thrumming in her ears as she steps past the table full of glass pieces, the hours of puzzle work ahead of them.

She stops a few steps behind Regina, and gently clears her throat. The sound is loud enough to be heard, especially in this silence, but Regina doesn’t startle or turn around. She remains almost completely motionless, unmoved, except for the small frowning spasm at the corner of her mouth.

“Hey.” Emma whispers.

With a slow, gradual sigh, Regina straightens up. She doesn’t turn around, staring instead at the glossy, blank mirror. “Hey” she returns, her voice just as soft.

Emma steps closer, but comes to a heavy halt when she watches the way the corner of Regina’s mouth tightens again. It is an expression Emma is familiar with, the look of grim firmness that Regina brings to her work or a Town Meeting, navigating demands and negotiations that stiffens the line of her jaw and makes firm the elegant curve of her neck.

Feeling an embarrassing anguish well up in her chest, Emma struggles to swallow it down before she speaks. But it comes anyway, wavering in her voice like a watery thread as she asks, “What happened?”

Regina’s face tightens. “Nothing.”

“Oh come on, don’t do that,” Emma sighs and tiredly rubs the back of her neck. “Look... If you regret what happened last night -”

“No,” Regina snaps, immediately harsh. She glares darkly at her from through the mirror. “ _Of course_ not, Emma.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know?” Emma hedges uncertainly, shoving her hands deep into her jean pockets. “I wake up, thinking -- I don’t know, that -- that we have something, and then you’re pretending like -- like there’s nothing to even say about this.”

“Well, is there?” Pressing her lips more firmly together, Regina plucks a piece of glass from the small oak table beside her, giving it a cool, critical glare as she likely imagines the innumerable possibilities of its place. “What happened here -- I don’t regret it, but I don’t see how it changes anything.”

“What?” Emma says slowly, feeling with numb, dimming hope the way the small space in between her ribs seems to grow smaller, pushing closer together to keep contained the growing hurt of her heart.

Regina lets out a disgruntled sigh, and sets the piece of glass against the wrong corner, off by an angle. “Well, we’re going to go through this mirror, soon,” Though she likely tries to keep her voice smooth and clear, nonchalant, something inside her wilts, touching the cold metal below. “And you’re -- you’re going to be go back to him.”

It startles in Emma her first thought of Hook. But even as the guilt comes, (deriving, somewhat awkwardly, from her own embarrassment) a larger part of her, the part that weighs more, that feels just a little more like her, is relieved. Set free.

“No,” she says, and feels the relief well. “No I’m not.”

Regina just shakes her head, pressing back the feeling crinkling the corner of her mouth as she glares down at the piece of glass in her fingers. “Yes you will,” she murmurs, at last.

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.” Snapping, Regina turns to glare back at Emma, finally face-to-face. “You will, because -- because you have a life with him. You have a house with him. You went to _hell_ for him. That’s not -- that can’t possibly just go away because of one night with me.”

“One night?” Emma smiles, daring to step closer, to tentatively reach out for the small notch of Regina’s elbow. “ _Regina_ ,  it’s been six years.”

Regina tosses her head away with a scoff, but she doesn’t immediately wench her arm away, so, slowly, Emma steps closer. She presses her thumb gently against the tender spot inside Regina’s elbow, the place she had drowsily kissed last night before the weight of sleep took her away.

Slowly, Regina swallows. She waits, staring out at the blurry edge of trees.

“Regina. It’s not -- it’s not just about things, alright? I should know, I spent the last few weeks trying to fill everything I didn’t feel with Hook with things alone. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t -- it doesn’t feel even half as real as how I feel about you.”

Regina doesn’t look at her for a while, frowning the last of her doubts at the edge of bare branches in the sky, but when Emma gently squeezes her elbow again, something in her softens, breathes, lifts back up to the surface.

Shakily, Regina takes a deep breath. When she turns to look at Emma, there is a tentative hope there, held in a hard brow and along all the small, thin lines around her eyes. She stares at Emma for a long while before, slowly, she tugs her in for a kiss. Between their lips, there is that slight click, like something realigning, mending, turning right again.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! leave a little review if you liked it


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